Angst

Angst is the only feature Gerald Kargl ever directed. He financed it largely himself, drawing on the 1980 case of Werner Kniesek in Lower Austria, and lost almost everything when it was banned or shunned across much of Europe on release in 1983. Kargl went back to making commercials and educational films, and for decades the film survived mainly through bootleg tapes and a scattering of foreign titles, among them Schizophrenia.

Its premise fits in a sentence: a man is released from prison and, within hours, sets out to kill again. What makes it singular is the craft. Kargl co-wrote it with the Polish animator Zbigniew Rybczyński, who also shot and edited it and who won an Oscar that same year for his short Tango. His camera is strapped to the actor, hovers directly overhead or glides alongside at ground level, so the viewer is locked inside the killer's body and rhythm. Erwin Leder, the engine-room mechanic of Das Boot, gives a twitching, wholly committed performance, set against an interior monologue in a calm, explanatory voice and a droning synthesiser score by Klaus Schulze.

Restorations in the 2010s, including Cult Epics' 2015 release and limited US theatrical run, brought it a new audience. Gaspar Noé has named it a formative influence, and its fingerprints are visible on recent horror such as In a Violent Nature. It is punishing and not for everyone, but few films make violence feel so dreadful rather than thrilling.